Gaijin

"Gaijin" is a contraction of gaikokujin (外国人 foreigner lit: outside country person). The term is now generally considered as demeaning though this view is not universally accepted. There is also old expression "Ijin" meaning alien, a contraction of Ikokujin (lit: different country person ) or Ihoujin (lit: different japan person) which was common use up to early 20 century.

The word Gaijin was not originally coined for derogatory purpose. It is part of common Japanese practice to shorten words for speech, as is evidence by the use of term gaijin-san, a friendlier variation of reference. Also, gaijin cannot be used for projetive utterance. However, the term gradually came to be perceived by the foreingers as derogatory due to the context in which the word came to be used.

When the word gaijin is used to refer to particular person, it is commonly applied to non oriental foreigners especially Caucasians. Chinese and Korean are always refered to by their ethinic or national backgrounds such as Chugokujin (Chinese), Taiwanjin (Taiwanese), Kankokujin (South Korean) or Kitachosenjin (North Korean). Moreover, gaijin is written with two kanji: 外 (gai; outside) and 人 (jin; person). Many foreingers considered that use of the term emphasise a foreigner's non-belonging. For this reason, many insist the use of gaikokujin over gaijin. Foreingers residing in Japanese also point out that when Japanese goes overseas, they incorrectly describe the local resident as gaijin or gaikokujin despite the fact that it is this Japanese person who is foreign. A counter-argument is that these countries are still foreign to Japanese visitors.

Most Japanese still use this term in part of their conversation without having perjorative intent though they may avoid using it in front of foreigners. Even now, some foreingers are asked by puzzeled Japanese why they find gaijin to be offensive. For Japanese, the difference between gajin and gaikokujin are like difference between the word "blind" and "visually impaired", distinction which make sense only for the sake of political correctness. For many foreigners, it is much more akin to the difference betweent the word "negro" and "black". Though the original meaning is not derogatory and merely descriptive, the context in which the word has come to be used has made the word demeaning. Probably the truth is somewhere between this two viewpoints. Recently, sociologist has noted that new word, jingai, which is reverse of gai-jin, was coined for specifically perjorative purpose. The word serves a double purpose. One is to mock those who insist that gaijin is perjorative and the other is to indeed use it to slander foreigners who previously had no specific, perjorative description.

In Japan, the word gaijin is part of debate over Kotobagari (Word Hunt). It refers to (over zealous) censorship of words considered politically incorrect. Leper (rai), blind (mekura), deaf (tunbo), crazy (kichigai), slaughter house (tosatujou), moron/retard (hakuchi) are currently not used by the majority of Japanese publishing houses and they often refuse to publish writing which include these words.

Critics of Kotobagari point out that the activity often serve no purpose of correcting underlying cause of discrimination. For example, a school janitor in Japan used to be called "kozukai-san" (choir person). The word was then started to be considered as demeaning so it was switched to "youmuin" (task person). Now "youmuin" is considered demeaning so there is shift to "koumuin" (school task person) or "kanrisagyouin" (maintenance person).

In regard to the word "gaijin", it is pointed out that what foreingers find it really annyoing is the fact that they are refered as "foreiner" by people around them long after they have settled in. In this respect, whether the person is refered to as gaijin-san or gaikokujin-san would make no different. Moreover, the fact that they stand out in such an ethincally homogenious society is not something they can change. However, whatever one's view about reasonableness of claim that gaijin is projetive, to openly express disagreement by insisting use of gaijin would be rude by the standard of Japanese etiquete. This partially explain why Kotobagari is such prevalent activity in Japanese media. The act of claiming projetive implication is enough to taint a word as projetive.